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30% More Patents Issued in 2010
An anonymous reader writes "The numbers are in, and the US Patent Office granted 219,614 patents last year, which is 31% higher than in 2009 and 27% higher than any year in history. This wasn't just a marginal increase in patents being approved, but a major leap. US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and USPTO director David Kappos have both stated that one of their goals is to reduce the backlog in patent approvals, and it appears that the way they're doing so is by approving more patents, more quickly with less scrutiny — with a large percentage of them being software patents. This may decrease the backlog at the Patent Office, but seems likely to increase the backlog in the court system as lawsuits are filed over a bunch of these new patents."
It's a shame "don't submit obvious patent trolls", "don't attempt to patent shit you obviously didn't create", and "don't waste the PTO's time by changing one line in your claim and resubmitting it" can't be followed. Seriously. WTF.
Living With a Nerd
n/t
Let's hope they get the Patent-patent and lock it away forever. People believing that there is only 1 inventor of an idea don't know shit about history. It's very very rare for 1 person to come up with something really unique. Patents, especially on obvious things like math (software) or a 1 click-to-buy (amazon) aren't a big problem today for the average citizen, but it won't be long before those lobbies will get a law that will also let them target the end-users. Mark my words. Patents as they are implemented have absolutely nothing to do with protecting design, but everything with locking out fair competition and maximizing profits for often very obvious things that at least another million people thought about but just dind't file for it, for the simple reason: duhhh obvious.
30% more Shit from the USPTO
There I fixed that for you.
Hope is the currency of fools
It's going to get exponentially worse before it gets better?
Great...
Eh, waddya gonna do? It's good for business.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
What kind of moron patents DNA sequences... A Naturally occurring chemical. Putting a patent on the techniques to discover the sequences I could understand, if I didn't think knowledge should be free. Such a lack of wisdom is really sad.
The US Patent Office get its funding from patent applications fees.
So the question is: WHAT THE #UcK DID YOU EXPECT!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I patented the use of letter "E" on line $0.02 per use.
My prof was talking about patents and using them as a resource for generating new ideas. The original intent of patents. He had to warn us though because companies will file multiple patents that vary slightly, but in the end don't work. They are there to hide the actual patent. Talk about side stepping the whole concept of why patents exist and is contributing to the backlog.
Here's a page with really funny patents which have never been approved. (with patent image goodness!)
http://www.elistmania.com/juice/10_hugely_ridiculous_patents
My favorite: The Self Spanking Machine!
As the principle author of a patent application based on misuse of the DHCP protocol to do device discovery, I find your lack of faith in the US Patent system disturbing...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
We should really curb our emissions (of frivolous patent applications), or else.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
They're not patenting DNA sequences. They patent the way of finding a DNA sequence. That way if that ends up being useful they get a percentage of any drug that targets it. With over 20% of the human genome now patented they have at least a 1 in 5 chance of hitting the jackpot like a cancer treatment.
A cure would be better but there is more money in a treatment than a cure.
How is that any different to patenting a map route or a set of GPS coordinates?
"This may decrease the backlog at the Patent Office, but seems likely to increase the backlog in the court system as lawsuits are filed over a bunch of these new patents."
More jobs for lawyers!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
"finding" as DNA sequences is a pretty complex bit of biochemistry/nano-technology.
more quickly with less scrutiny
Ok, yes, the more quickly part is common sense. But how do you know that they're doing this carelessly or with less scrutiny? Perhaps they have more employees now.
Fin. I Just won't us thm anymor.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Okay!
Look up Gadsby - I cannot show a Wiki Link without a incurring a cost to you.
Look up Lipogrammatic.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Come on guys, this is a great example of reduced government inefficiency at its best! We should be cheering!!
You forgot the titl.
is now, "... on the phone"
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Others with more complex patent applications wait up to eight years before getting awarded. Since patents are only good for 20 years after the date of application, their value is diminishing with these delays. Some cheer the idea that the patent process may become obsolete. Of course, some people have never had an idea or even a clue, and they need the playing field leveled.
I'm probably one of the few on Slashdot that thinks patents are a good thing.
But I would love to see the process changed whereby patent proposals were posted on a wiki website, inviting the public to cite prior art (or to present arguments as to why the patent should not be granted, with a comment rating system, so that people could vote on the comments) before the patent was granted. This would just help the patent examiners be more educated. .... I think I'll patent that idea.
Fin. I Just won't us thm anymor.
Fun with shell scripts: ShellScriptGames.com [shellscriptgames.com]
That is still $0.10.
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
send the $0.10 to 1060 west addison chicago IL
Those stats are misleading. USPTO also processed 24% more applications in 2010 than 2009, so more allowances are expected. The allowance rate has remained around 45% since 2008, which is actually a drop from being over 50% for 2006-7. This compares favorably with the 49% and 48% allowance rates for the Europe and Japan, respectively. Allowance rate is allowed patents divided by total disposals.
The USPTO has many problems but the allowance rate is not one of them. Quality and scrutiny of granted patents are likewise a focus of the office, with much improvement over the situation from several years ago. Read about it in the USPTO PAR.
Source: USPTO Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) FY 2010. Look particularly at the chart on page 125.
USPTO makes all sorts of patent data available. Patentlyo.com for one does a good job analyzing this stuff. Techdirt is more interested in making headlines than objective analysis.
The real winner is government, from the top down as usual. The patent office was given the incentive to swamp the legal system with business -- especially the kind that rakes through big players -- because it makes the legal system more complex and more expensive. The more it costs to administer the legal system, the more the business of government is worth. The more power and revenue that can be justified to run the whole show, the more lucrative government becomes. For those at the top of the pyramid, it's a hidden cash cow (yet right in front of your eyes) they will never willingly give up, much like drug prohibition. We are talking about the most expensive, most complex, and yet most ambiguous system of law in the world. It's almost as if it was designed to be exploited.
But I'm not talking about politicians voting themselves insanely high salaries. I'm talking about profiting indirectly via the power one holds over a particular cash flow. The more money you control or influence, the larger your presence in the business of government and the more your "services" are worth to those in the "private" sector.
I find it alarming how most people focus on the people exploiting the law from the outside (the patent holders, the lobbyists, the megacorp CEOs). They are merely following the law. It is those who define and implement the law that we should be watching. So let's call a spade a spade: when governnment accepts a bribe, it is precisely the fault of government -- not the one who offered the bribe. After all, the lobbyists are encouraged to do what they do, because there are very large incentives. But again, guess who defines and implements those incentives in the first place? It sure ain't the CEOs and their lobbyists.
Jeez. I just watched that movie last night. What are you, a Peeping Tom?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
...in "innovation".
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The techdirt article is obviously written by someone who knows very little about patents and the US patent system.
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/uspto-patent-grants-a-second-perspective.html
See the below link and its comments. This is a proper analysis.
Much of the reason for the high number of grants is because the USPTO finally cleared out filings which dated back 7-10 years and stopped an endless charade of poor rejections which was a result of the previous regime of by Dudas and Doll.
30% more technological progress in 2030!
The number of rejections is also at a record level. The Office is simply operating more efficiently after a couple of years of mismanagement. The rate of allowance is still somewhat low, historically-speaking.
I strongly urge you and everyone here with an interest to read this paper, entitled "Peer to Patent: Collective Intelligence and Intellectual Property Reform. I've copied the abstract below but the basic gist is to utilize a system of peer review. It's far from perfect, but despite being five years old it's a fresh look at a crippled system, and would be a great starting point to get the ball rolling on the conversation needed to fix this.
Peer to Patent: Collective Intelligence, Open Review and Patent Reform argues that remedying the information deficit that impedes effective patent examination is a key to improving patent quality. The article shifts the locus of patent reform to the administrative practice of examination. It addresses the problem by proposing a new model for open examination whereby self-selected, scientific experts submit prior art with commentary to the patent examiner. Open examination combines the transparency and self-selection of public participation with the structured practices of peer review. It goes beyond them, however, by eschewing the closed conception of expertise that sometimes plagues peer review and by making legal decision-making more transparent and accountable than traditional notice-and-comment rulemaking.
Metaphorically, open examination marries the practices of Wikipedia to the authority of administrative law. By redesigning the method for patent examination, this proposal points the way towards a new approach for both intellectual property and administrative law, not by altering statutory or judicial standards, but by improving agency institutional competence. The United States Patent and Trademark Office will launch the Community Patent Review pilot in 2007 to try open examination and generate concrete data to drive reform.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Is the technique used for finding one piece of DNA any different to finding a different piece? If not then while it may be many times more difficult to do its still a case of following one route or another.
Gary Locke was a not exactly a wonderful governor, and I don't think he's doing any better as Commerce Secretary. He lied when he said he was going to quit politics to spend more time with his family... he just had his eyes on D.C. instead.
I, for one, think we would all be much better off if he just went back to his family.
The "patent is SHIT" guys should stop shouting and use their energy helping the EFF in prior art searching to kill patents.
The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) has come into play so the USPTO does not have to re-examine patents where the patent has already been successfully examined in another jurisdiction (such as Australia, Japan etc) - I received a press release from the Australian Patent Office recently that stated that accelerated examination of a patent can take place where a corresponding patent has been examined with at least one successful claim in another jurisdiction that is party to the PPH. See www.uspto.gov & type PPH into the search box
David Kappos seems to be outdoing himself. Obviously, he can take a fair share of the credit for this upswing. By all accounts, the new Director of the US patent office appears to have earned his stellar reputation.